Resolution
by Fragorl
Summary: Damon considers the development with Caroline and his hesitation with staking her.


'Don't kill me, please! Help me.. just..help me?' Later, a drink in his hand Damon would tell himself he had not been moved. That the feeling of her body, pressed against his own with almost trusting desperation, had not stayed his hand. The drawn out seconds of precious vulnerability in which lives were cruelly ended...sometimes...

O the irony did not escape him, and he drank to it, alone. Further evidence for the heart he would have preferred to have denied. What would Elena have said? Or better yet, his brother? With an unlikely mercy, which he entirely distrusted, Stefan had not said a thing. Yet. Was it possible that in all the chaos it had not occurred to him, what should by now be second nature? That his older brother was deadly and never missed. Rarely hesitated.

The glass was empty. So was the bottle. It smashed satisfyingly against the wall. The table on which it had rested quickly followed. He had not hesitated! In his extended lifetime there had only been two women capable of that. Both were beautiful and in a typically cruel twist of fate, in love with his brother.

Only one of them had killed this girl. Was that what troubled him? Did his old and shameful devotion still rule him so completely that it extended its protection even to this meaningless child?

But he would no longer lie to himself. It was not Katherine he had seen, when he whispered to her gently that it was the only way. It was not Elena. Nor even was it the brainwashed toy he had played with and discarded. All of that had been shrugged off with the silencing of her heart.

The woman who had clung to him in that parking lot with so much vulnerability had awoken something that in truth he had preferred to forget. His own words: 'her mother hunts vampires. What chance does she have in our world?'

What had he told the kid brother? 'My father hunted vampires too.' The inevitable connection, so sharp that alcohol could not dull it. Not that it ever had. Damon sighed. It was his good fortune that the situation had been removed from his hands.

By none other than his brother's shining princess. Who ironically enough was the reason for the situation in the first place, not that dirt would ever stick to _her_. But still he could not deny feeling a sick relief when she had so recklessly thrown herself in front of his attack.

He had hesitated the token moment, unable to resist playing with the emotions of the girl who had rejected him, and his darling brother, but that had been for show. They all knew it. He would never hurt her. And because she insisted on protecting the disloyal girl who was still her friend, he had the most convenient excuse for not harming either.

And why _had _he wanted to kill Caroline in the first place? It was not revenge, he had not cared enough about her escape from him to seek it. He could say that it was the protection of Elena but Vicky's instability had made her ten times more a threat, and _Stefan_ had staked her. Neither of the women who had scorned him were in danger. And Caroline? She had looked up at him from those irresistibly frightened eyes, which he had known that survival would turn cruel, and he had wanted to save her.

Not her life, that was already taken. But to save her from a subtler fate, the inevitable corruption of death, which would be worse. It was an admission he could never have made out loud. Especially not to _Saint_ Stefan.

But the fate of immortality, as enjoyable as it often was, was just another burden to lay at his younger sibling's door. And there were nights, not often, but real none the less, that he wondered what it would have been like, if someone had been there to have saved him. Whether the momentary agony of the stake would not have been kinder than an eternity of this?

Damon was not without a sense of mercy, although admittedly one twisted beyond the realm of how others viewed the word. Few who felt it recognised it, but it was there none the less. An alternative code of honour. One that meant as tempting as it seemed he could not relinquish responsibility for this particular situation.

It had been so satisfying to tell Elena that this one was on her. And in a way it was. But it had been his love who had killed her, and his blood that had kept her alive. That meant something.

The parallels with the past were impossible to shake off, but this girl was stronger than Vicky. He could picture Elena's accusing face: 'People die around you.' That was true, and something he would never be ashamed of. But he told himself now, and intended to stick with it: this one wouldn't.


End file.
